A plume of dark smoke billowed out from the front of the spire’s foundation, followed by a grinding groan. The entire structure lurched and shuddered, slowing to a halt.

  Jerro sat up abruptly. “You think they know?”

  “Let’s not wait around to find out,” Mari said, and led the way through the large dark metallic doorway.

  The interior was beyond dark, like the cave. The only exception was a faint red light that illuminated a narrow path ahead. It flowed in segmented lines down a winding corridor and terminated at a short set of stairs. As the light moved, its trail vanished instantly into the surrounding blackness, pulled under like blood into thirsty soil.

  They started up the stairs cautiously.

  Greg stumbled on the second step and caught himself against the wall. I miss those drones, he sent, irritation sharp in the link. This place eats the light.

  Mari slowed, turning back. The red glow flickered across her helmet, then dimmed again, as though it noticed her noticing it.

  What if we don’t need drones, she sent. Not exactly. What if we can do it? On purpose. Mari hesitated on a step. We keep finding new things when we’re cornered. Maybe we’re cornering ourselves.

  Jerro felt a brief tightening in his chest as her thought brushed against his, closer than usual. He was about to respond when Mari let her awareness slip outward.

  She did not push. She reached.

  It felt less like opening a door and more like extending a paw into cold water, unsure how deep it went. The sensation spread unevenly, thin at first, then widening as it moved beyond her body. Almost immediately she felt resistance, not from the space itself, but from the bonds already there.

  Greg and Jerro. When Mari’s awareness expanded, it caught on them like fabric on a hook. Before she could adjust, they were pulled with her.

  Jerro’s stomach lurched.

  Too much information rushed in at once, overlapping impressions stacking without order. He instinctively searched for patterns, for edges and seams, and found them everywhere. The walls were not smooth. They carried shallow ridges and softened seams, like stone that had once been pliable and had hardened in layers. Reinforced sections rose in gentle arcs that did not match the geometry of the corridor, and stress lines spidered through the structure like veins under skin.

  Okay, he sent, breath unsteady. That’s a lot. I’m getting structure. Too much structure.

  Greg barely noticed the walls. What caught him was movement. Not shapes or bodies, but intention. Subtle displacements in the air ahead. Pressure changes. The absence of stillness. His focus locked forward without him deciding to, instincts snapping into place as if this was something he had always known how to do.

  Something is coming, Greg sent. Not here yet, but moving toward us.

  Mari tightened her focus, instinctively pulling the shared awareness closer, compressing it until the noise dulled. The space sharpened in response. Not brighter, but clearer. Materials resolved themselves by feel rather than sight. Metal hummed faintly. Stone carried memory. Even the air had texture.

  This was not a display or borrowed vision. It was messy and overwhelming and entirely theirs.

  At the top of the stairs, the red lighting ended at an arched metal door. Mari placed a paw against it and extended just enough awareness to check beyond.

  This room is clear, Mari sent.

  She nodded, and they moved through together.

  Inside, a block of metal with concave sides rested against one wall, clearly repurposed as a table. Spare pitchforks were mounted nearby. Hexagonal cards sat stacked in the center, flanked by three uneven piles. The air carried a sour foundation, topped with a sulfuric bite that stung their noses and caught in their throats. Across the room, a hatch stood open. A heap of flesh monster remains had been stacked beside it.

  Jerro crouched and flipped the lid back, his focus narrowing. The information came through more cleanly this time. The hatch led to a chute, angled downward and reinforced for repeated use.

  Before he could relay more, the shared awareness brushed outward again, unbidden this time.

  They felt them.

  Eight distinct presences moving through the adjoining hall. Coordinated. Armored. Close enough now that the air itself seemed to tense around the thought.

  I’m not going down that hatch, Greg sent. The idea swam out before he could stop it.

  No, Mari replied. I have another plan. Follow my lead.

  The hyrax contingent burst into the room, cutting a direct path toward them.

  Mari felt their psionosense falter all at once, not fading so much as collapsing under sudden pressure. The shared awareness they had been leaning on slipped away, like a thought pulled from their grasp just as it was forming. It was not gone entirely, but it was muted, compressed beneath something heavier that had entered the space with the hyrax.

  The room lit in a neutral amber glow from a line of wall sconces set into the stone. Their light was steady and unbothered. A string of squeaks and guttural sounds came from the apparent leader as it stepped forward. Bold white lettering was emblazoned across ?its breastplate.

  I-R-S.

  Each hyrax carried a rugged blaster with elongated, rigid geometry held at the low ready. Their polearms remained sheathed along their backs.

  They were not aiming at the friends, but they were close enough that Mari could feel the intent behind the formation. Ready, watching, waiting to be told otherwise.

  Mari glanced back over her shoulder and gave a quick wink to Jerro and Greg, then turned to face the hyrax and answered with her own burst of choked squeaks and strained, uneven screams.

  The sounds felt wrong as they left her mouth, but she did not try to correct them. Instead, she focused on the idea beneath the noise, forcing her intent to sit where meaning should have been. It took effort to hold, like keeping a shape from collapsing once the support was removed. Pressure thickened behind her eyes as she sustained it, and she became acutely aware of how fragile the illusion was.

  Jerro and Greg exchanged a look, then both glanced down at Phlip, who was still chewing contentedly on a length of exposed wire, blissfully unaware of the tension filling the room.

  A quick exchange of chirps and barks passed between the lead hyrax and another, then he turned and snapped commands to the rest. The formation shifted. Tension didn’t vanish, but it loosened into something closer to indifference—whatever Mari had made them perceive was no longer worth immediate concern.

  Half of the contingent filed out.

  Mari shot a quick glance back at her friends and tugged Phlip in behind her as she started down the hall. She could feel the illusion thinning behind her, like fabric stretched too far. Jerro and Greg followed without hesitation. The remaining hyrax fell in around them, one ahead and two behind, closing them into a moving pocket as they advanced.

  When did you learn to speak their language? Jerro asked. And what did you say to them?

  I do not think I am, Mari replied, keeping her focus forward. I was thinking about a lesson where we had to disguise a carrot. Make it look like something else. I could not do it then, but I thought maybe I could use the same technique on my words instead of an object.

  Well, what did you tell them? Greg asked. Why do they trust us?

  I told them we pulled him out of the tar, Mari answered, flicking a glance between them and Phlip. Made us look like hyraxes to them. I think they bought it, but I don’t think I can do this again. Not like that.

  They continued down the corridor.

  Now we have to take Phlip down to some containment area, Mari added. Jerro, if you get a chance to break away, see what that magic map of yours is showing us in here. I’ll tell them you have to go to the bathroom.

  I don’t have to, Jerro replied immediately. I’m good.

  No Jerro. I know. That is just so you can look at the map.

  Oh... He nodded along with the thought. Right.

  The halls were tight and took strange, organic paths, like they had been grown rather than built—layer upon layer, old and new pressed together, compacted into shape. As they climbed, Mari became aware of the spire itself in a way she could not fully explain. It was not watching them, exactly, but it was registering them. Whenever she leaned too hard on her psionics, the sensation brushed along the edges of her mind, slow and structural, like weight shifting deep within the foundation.

  They wound up a staircase and passed a barred window.

  Jerro slowed just long enough to peer out. Halfway up, I’d estimate, he sent.

  Mari’s foot slipped on the next step. Her focus wavered for only a moment, but the pressure surged in response. She stumbled forward before she could correct herself.

  Greg caught her by the arm and steadied her without breaking stride.

  How long do you think you can hold this? He asked, not accusatory, just careful.

  Her strain bled into the mindspace before she could pull it back. I’m not sure, Mari admitted. It feels like something is building. Like the spire knows we don’t belong here.

  She straightened and kept walking, forcing her breathing to slow.

  Whatever was listening had not acted yet, but that did not mean it would wait.

  As they marched along, they passed barracks, mechanical rooms, storage areas, kitchens, and open spaces full of hyrax running drills. Horrifying calls met them, a hard clattering that drove through the corridor and into their ribs. It came from ahead, from a wide hangar bay where the sound bounced and multiplied. This must have been where they had seen the birds land earlier.

  The air carried damp straw and sharp bird musk, tightening their throats. Now close up, they could make out the details. The birds had robust frames coated in salted gray plumage. Yellow orbs sat high in their eye sockets. Their thick rounded bills clattered together as they called, the discordant drumming rolling out through the open bay door and into the abyss of The Glorp.

  Through a door adjacent to the hangar, was a long hall lined with half a dozen cells on each side. Some had energized barriers up, enclosing the cell.

  As they passed the first, a small mushroom with a swirling purple cap and white spots sat idly in the middle of the room.

  The cell next to it was where the hyrax leader guided Mari and Phlip. As Mari settled Phlip into the cell, pretending he was an aggressive monster, Greg was drawn back to the mushroom. He took a step toward the yellow sheet of translucent energy that closed the cell.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Suddenly the mushroom opened one singular eye and pierced an intense stare through Greg. A white cloud of spores rushed out from under the cap and through the energy screen.

  When it cleared, the mushroom was gone.

  Greg touched his cheek. A fine powder spread smoothly between his paw pads.

  Uh… Jerro, did you see that? Greg sent, while Mari continued her wrangling act with Phlip.

  Jerro’s eyes narrowed, and his head tilted. See what?

  Greg looked at his paw. The spore dust had vanished.

  In the cell, there was a little purple and white mushroom.

  “That mushroom?” Jerro pointed back at the cell where Greg had looked away. “Yeah. What in the burrow…”

  Mari yelled, herding Phlip the way you would a wild beast. “YAAA. YAAA.” She danced around him, pretending to avoid his ferocious attacks. He playfully lunged and avoided her advances.

  Finally, she wrestled him down. While it wasn’t obvious to the hyrax, Phlip had let her. Greg and Jerro noticed, though, especially when she leaned close and whispered something in his ear that made him settle.

  Mari stepped out of the cell confidently and gave a quick “Awawa!” and a salute to the hyrax leader. She had been studying their behavior while moving through the halls, and it was becoming convincing.

  The guard slapped the control panel next to the cell, and the sheet of yellow energy enclosed Phlip.

  Phlip looked at Mari with his confused glassy eyes. He attempted to follow, to push through the barrier, but it stopped him with a shock that sent him leaping back. In the far corner, he curled into a ball, ears tucked flat, face buried.

  Mari fought back her emotions and regained her composure. She had a job to do.

  The lead hyrax took them out of the containment area and exchanged some grunts and screeches with Mari.

  Mari suppressed her emotions and sent a quick message, convenient as the knot in her throat would have prevented much actual speech. Alright guys, I think he’s gonna leave us to ‘get back on our own’.

  Jerro’s eyes relaxed. Whew. I’m just glad we don’t have to do that whole thing where you were going to pretend I had to go to the bathroom. I don’t think I could have done it. I get super bladder shy, and I still don’t even have to go. I think The Glorp is dehydrating me. I should probably drink some water.

  Uhhh okay. Yeah, can you see if the map is working while you do that? Mari reminded him.

  The armored hyrax contingent moved off down the hall and out of sight. Greg moved up to the next bend to keep a lookout while Jerro and Mari consulted the map.

  It was updating. The ink swirled and reformed, showing their current location, zoomed to scale and detailing out the chambers and passages. Mari noted the ones they had passed, building a reference to their current position. Across the top, the name changed from The Glorp to The Citadel.

  “Can we see the other levels or zoom out on this?” Mari asked Jerro.

  Jerro spread the map flat on the ground. “Maybe. Let me try something.”

  The two rodents, on all fours, carefully examined it.

  “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” Jerro said, focusing as his eyes rolled back. The map tilted from a bird’s-eye plan to a side profile, then peeled through its levels as if responding to his intent. With the whites of his eyes still showing he continued. “Let’s go toward the top, maybe?”

  “Yeah,” Mari said, locked on the white orbs. She shifted her attention back to the map. “If I were a big bad hyrax, I would definitely want to do my evil activities from the top.”

  “This is the spot.” Mari pointed at a large chamber, one level spread wide at the top floor.

  Greg’s thought snapped. Guys, someone is coming. Wrap it up and do that thing you were doing, Mari.

  Not sure I can do it again, Mari replied.

  Jerro rolled up the map and slid it into his pack, and they hustled down the hall to catch up with Greg.

  Mari reached into her mind again, searching for the illusion. She tried to find it the way she had learned, focusing on the carrot from her lesson and the certainty that it could exist even when it didn’t.

  Nothing came. Not even a flicker.

  A small hyrax approached from down the hallway, slower than the others, posture folded in on itself. It kept glancing at the three friends as if it expected to be punished for simply standing there, then its eyes locked on Mari.

  An instant later it startled and hopped backward into a corner, pressing itself into the stone, desperate to vanish.

  A scream filled the hallway. It was still sharp and ugly, but there was a gentler quality beneath it, less threat than panic. The sound bounced off the tight stone, multiplied, and came back worse.

  Mari lifted both paws and took a careful step forward. “It’s okay,” she breathed, even though she didn’t know if the hyrax could understand her. She pressed a paw to her chest in a simple gesture, then lowered it again. She kept her movements slow. No sudden turns. No quick steps. No reaching.

  The scream broke apart into a choked breath. The hyrax’s eyes stayed wide, chest heaving as it darted its gaze between Mari, Jerro, and Greg, waiting for one of them to rush it.

  Greg moved first, but not toward it. He eased back to the last corner they had passed, turning his body so he could watch the corridor behind them.

  Jerro raised a paw to his temple, attention pulling inward. Let me see if I can learn anything. Just a light peek. Enough to understand her motive, not enough to hurt her.

  Mari didn’t answer. She kept approaching until she was close enough to share the corner without crowding it. Then she turned her back to the wall and slid down beside the hyrax, leaving a small gap between them. She sat still, paws resting in her lap, letting her breathing settle into something calm and steady.

  The hyrax stayed pressed against the stone. Its fur looked duller than the others, rough in places, and its limbs trembled with exhausted fear. It quieted, but it didn’t relax.

  Jerro stepped closer, careful with his footfalls, and his expression shifted into that distant focus Mari had seen before. He was still in the hallway with them, but his mind moved somewhere else.

  When Jerro entered the hyrax’s mind, he hit the raw edge of panic first. Everything in her was scanning for danger and punishment. There was no language to follow, no words to translate, only sensation and expectation, fear worn into shape by repetition.

  Corner. Trap. Big shapes. Consequence.

  He held steady and eased past the surface, keeping his presence small and quiet. The jagged fear did not vanish, but it loosened enough for images to form.

  He saw her in The Citadel’s corridors, slipping aside before anyone had to ask. Always yielding space. Always a step behind. Shoved shoulders. A sharp sting, then the dull certainty that she wasn’t wanted.

  Work filled the gaps. The tasks no one claimed. Cleaning. Hauling. Scraping. Anything that kept her moving, head down, muscles burning—because being busy was safer than being noticed.

  Loneliness sat under it all. Not new. Something older, deeper, never given the chance to heal.

  Jerro pushed farther back, searching for where that grief began.

  The Citadel fell away, and a different place rose into view. Rocky buff stone spread under an open sky. Tufts of green succulent vegetation clung to cracks in the stone, and wind moved cleanly through low scrub. The air there felt sharp and bright compared to the dead weight of The Glorp. In the memory, she was younger. Lighter. She wasn’t alone. Her brother was there, close enough that her mind carried the steady comfort of him without having to look.

  Then the birds came.

  Enormous shadows swept across the rocks. Heavy wings, dust pluming at each landing, thick bills clacking like tools turned into weapons. A contingent of hyrax rode them, hard-eyed and sure of their authority. Jerro couldn’t catch the meaning of what they said, but their intent was unmistakable.

  Obedience.

  On their armor, stamped and repeated, were the same three letters Jerro had seen earlier. I-R-S.

  Her brother was forced forward. There was a moment where his body tensed, where he resisted, where his eyes flicked toward her with a silent promise that made her chest ache. Then numbers and threat crushed that moment into inevitability. They left anyway, pulled into service under the Overlord’s banner, into allegiance she hated and could not stop.

  Jerro pushed too far, and the memory flared. Pain and panic snapped back across the hyrax’s thoughts, too sharp, too raw, threatening to drag her fear back into the hallway with them.

  He pulled forward again, choosing a later thread.

  The Citadel returned with rigid order. Training. Marching. Command. Her brother was there again, older now, shaped by constant pressure. He was preparing for a mission. She hovered near him, trying not to show her fear, trying to be the kind of sibling that made leaving easier instead of harder. The feeling she carried was clear enough to tighten Jerro’s chest.

  Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone.

  He left anyway. That was the way of The Citadel.

  Jerro watched her wait through long hours and longer days. Birds returned. Riders returned. Her brother did not. The Overlord arrived when her brother did not, and The Citadel tightened around itself. Training intensified. Missions increased. Discipline sharpened into something crueler. She worked harder and kept her head down, doing odd jobs until her body ached, because grief didn’t earn mercy here.

  Then word reached her.

  Jerro still couldn’t understand what was said, not in any literal way, but he felt the message land in her like a blow. The shape of it. The finality delivered without softness.

  Her brother had died.

  The only reason offered was cold. He had died rescuing the Overlord.

  Jerro’s focus tightened painfully as realization hit. Deepworks. This was the same mission. The same event that had taken Keeper Aleese. The same wound that still burned inside him whenever he let his mind drift too close to it.

  Anger surged, bright and immediate, tangled with something else that surprised him. Recognition. Not of her life, but of her position. Trapped in a machine that ground hyraxes into tools. Fed lies and cruel priorities until it all felt inevitable.

  Jerro steadied himself. He didn’t push deeper. He didn’t need to. He brought his attention back toward the surface of her thoughts, toward the panic that had driven her into the corner, and he placed something small and careful there.

  Not words. Not language. Just intent, clear and steady.

  No harm. Not enemy. Pass through. Safe.

  The hyrax’s breathing shifted. It didn’t become calm, not fully, but it stopped breaking apart. Her eyes flicked toward Jerro, then Mari, and the frantic edge softened just enough to leave room for choice.

  Jerro opened his eyes and lowered his paw, expression tight with what he’d seen.

  She’s not like the others, Jerro sent. She’s terrified, and she’s alone here. She lost her brother. He held some of the details as his own, for now at least.

  Mari didn’t move. She stayed seated beside the hyrax, quiet and patient, letting the silence do the work her failed illusion could not.

  Mari stood slowly. “Come on. Let’s get moving.”

  As they continued, the passages became narrower, winding tighter and tighter as the floor area of each ascending level reduced with the structure of the spire.

  Mari paused on a landing that opened through a narrow archway. Jerro and Greg stacked at the entryway behind her. Beyond it was a small round room, quieter than the halls, with a glowing projection suspended in the center above a low pedestal.

  A web of connected pathways radiated outward from a single thick column, splitting into finer lines until terminating. Beneath it, a second network mirrored the first in reverse, reaching downward in pale branching strokes.

  The image flickered as the lines rearranged themselves. Some segments brightened and softened, swelling with a hint of life, while others thinned to faint threads, then steadied again. Brief pulses of color moved through the web in different places at once, blooming and fading in slow cycles that didn’t match each other.

  A matte screen curved around the wall, and an array of controls lined a ledge below. The screen was marked with icons depicting locations. Contours indicated the terrain.

  Jerro pulled out his map and zoomed out. Mari moved into the room, looking back at Jerro and Greg. “This is a navigation deck?”

  Jerro followed and held the map up. “Definitely. Look at this.”

  They matched.

  “Is that where The Citadel was heading then?” Greg pointed at a spot on the display, marked with a circle icon. A dashed trail traced the path of The Citadel, held centered.

  “I’d assume so,” Jerro said, consulting both maps beside Greg.

  Mari turned back to the projection, lingering on it. The glow lit her face against the shadowed room. It felt familiar. Like a place she had been but couldn’t remember.

  Your return has been anticipated… A deeply disturbing voice penetrated their minds.

  A shiver ran up their spines. They froze, eyes snapping to each other.

  Nothing more followed.

  Mari swallowed and started to speak. “Come on, let’s…” She cleared her throat and steadied herself. “Let’s get up there. We’re almost there.”

  The ascent was marked by a stairway that spiraled along the exterior of the spire, enclosed by columns of metal and yellow sheets of energy, like those on the cell where they had left Phlip.

  They rounded the final corner. A wide landing led to a fortress door. No seams or handle, just a dark slab waiting. Two armored guards wielded outstretched polearms, crossed in front of it. Without a word, they raised their weapons to a vertical position, and the door jarred, sliding upward into a pocket above.

  The friends approached with trepidation, passed the guards, and entered the large chamber.

  The ceiling was translucent, glass or energy shielding perhaps. It lit the room more than the rest of The Citadel. Beyond it, a dark blood-red sky pressed close. Three moons appeared in series, one yellow and two smaller ones with a green hue.

  A cylindrical tube filled with translucent orange liquid bubbled. The Prince was suspended within the fluid column. His body was withered now, eyes closed.

  Mari reached out telepathically, but there was nothing.

  You won’t have any luck with that one. I’ve separated his psionic essence from his corporeal being. The deep voice echoed, and unease swept through them in a wave.

  Standing in the middle of the room toward the back was the large hyrax, the Overlord. Outstretched and upturned paws revealed a cube floating above his right paw, glowing hot white, brimming with energy.

  Without consent, the Overlord’s voice tore into their minds again. The violation came first, then the aftertaste of it, a sour metallic dread that made their own thoughts slip loose. Powerful that one was. This bounty will serve its purpose.

  The door dropped shut, slamming into the floor with such force it knocked Jerro off balance. He dropped to a knee.

  As the Overlord turned with a flourish of his cape, an altar was briefly revealed, and the hairless creature lay flat upon it.

  Jerro recovered and pulled his monocular down in front of his eye to confirm his suspicion. The hairless creature was the source of the unique signature he had seen earlier when tracking through The Glorp.

  The Overlord’s voice boomed through their minds, heavy enough to drive them down.

  Now, my fragmented kin, we find out how much you have remembered!